


Becoming

by sunANDdust



Category: Girl with a Pearl Earring - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Other, Rating May Change, Tags May Change, What-If, alernative endings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunANDdust/pseuds/sunANDdust
Summary: I could go back to my parents.I could find Pieter at the Meat Hall and agree to marry him.I could go to van Ruijven's house – he would take me in with a smile.I could go to van Leeuwenhoek and ask him to take pity on me.I could go to Rotterdam and search for Frans.I could go off on my own somewhere far away.I could go back to Papists' Corner.I could go into the New Church and pray to God for guidance.I stood in the circle, turning round and round as I thought. When I made my choice I knew I had to make, I set my feet carefully along the edge of the point and went the way it told me, walking steadily.
Relationships: Griet (Girl with a Pearl Earring) - Relationship, Johannes Vermeer - Relationship, Maertge (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Pieter (Girl with a Pearl Earring) - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. I could go back to my parents.

With the light in my back falling from the door into the hallway and kitchen, my mother surely did not recognise me at first as the person standing on her doorstep. The pale reys touched her face when she looked up from her kitchen work – she was cutting cabbage for supper – and for one mere second I was able to study her unguarded face; haggard and wary.

I panted. I was searching for speech, unable to utter a word. My heart pounded quickly in my chest, standing there with empty hands, staring at her as if I was waiting for her to chase me from her home. Perhaps I did. When she finally recognized me, my mother remained as silent as a rock. Something in my expression, my eyes which showed too much and, to an extent, had gotten me to where I was now, must have caused her to pause and stare hesitantly.

Slowly, so slowly, she held her hand out to me with the corners of her mouth hanging like the branches of a willow. A sob – was it mine? – and I ran to her, grasping her hand and pressing it to my cheek. Would I have been in any other condition, I would have noticed its' tremble, would have seen the shine stealing into my mother's eyes that threatened to spill down her cheeks.

It was almost a whisper. “Oh, Griet – “, was all she said to me. My mother did not ask me what had happened nor the whereabouts of all my possessions I had taken with me the day I had left this house two years ago. I was led into the small chamber I had once shared with Agnes and which I would never share with anyone ever again as there was no one left to share with.

Just like a thousand times before, my mother gently slipped my cap off my head, unbraided my hair and loosened the ties of my bodice before I was to lie down. And although my heart and mind was in an uproar, running wildly like the wheel of a cart to process the events of that day, my mother's hushed “Sleep now” worked like a charm and sent me into slumber immediately.

No more secrets, no more lies. The next morning, after the surprised exclamation of my father, before a very quiet breakfast, I made the decision to finally speak. Strangely how distanced it made me feel from the past two years, as if it was the life of another girl that had been chewed and spat out by those above. As if it was another Griet and nothing like it would ever happen to me. To my parents I spoke of a house made of bricks that hid a fragile construction of struggle and secrets, threatened to collaps at every moment if one looked to closely at a painting; of hidden pleasures that smelled of linseedoil and ivory, charred in the fire.

My lips moved without restraint, forming words of a sly beast that would hunt me and grab me and leer at me over the rim of a wine glass before it would demand me to be painted for its' eyes only. Betrayal, hearts broken and sold for what they were worth. And how I had been a tool, played with and thrown around without care like a piece of cloth in a storm.

I spoke of all this once. My mother watched me with sharp eyes but she could not know that I had renounced lies and would stand with it for the rest of my life. They both listened and never asked me again.

Every day, about an hour before sunrise, I would accompany my mother on her walk beyond the town walls, along the channels and rivers into the greenery. Usually we reached our destination, spots and areas only mother knew of, when the sun crept over the trees on the horizon, bathing us in pink morning light. There she would show me how to find the youngest and softest dandelion, verbena, yarrow, nettles, countless other plants and herbs which humans benefitted of. Back at home we made them into ointments, tinctures, juices and sold them for a small price to improve our meager income of needle work. This work made me happy, I loved it because I was reminded of another place and time, my hands grinding and mixing red, blue, yellow, black; now the predominant colour was green. My father sat in his attic room and had he no longer spoken of the future in the past, he hardly spoke at all in the present.

One month, two months and my mother sent me out by myself while she would make use of the newly won time and start on washing and needle work. Soon she left the 'green work', as we called it jokingly, to me. “My old skin holds the stains too long, I cannot show myself to the customers and you scrub them off your fingers so nicely.”

At night, wild dreams came to me, I had no appetite, lost a lot of weight and our neighbours stared – but I was content if not happy.

It was on one of my walks that he came to me. Just outside the town gate I stopped, noticing the figure in the fog following me and not willed to walk further into corners where no other person would come to my aid. Too many times I had been helpless before my pursuer though surrounded by people and had sworn to myself, never again. When Pieter finally stood before me, I waited for the guilt to come; I had not thought of him much at all after I had been chased out of the house at the Oude Langendijck. He studied my face in silence and obviously came to the same conclusion. Maybe I had no guilt left in me.

“Griet”, he spoke my name and it send a confused shiver down my spine.

My hands pulled the cape tighter around my shoulders. “Pieter, you have come.”

He nodded, turning around to look behind himself as if he expected somebody to be there. He was still looking in that direction when he said, “You live with your parents, I assume.”

No 'why haven't you come to see me' or 'what happened' and I became aware of how much had actually slipped to the public of what should have been kept a private affair. He did not need to ask, Pieter knew it all.

I nodded. “My mother and I prepare herbs. Nothing special, just some ointments and little remedies to not wake the apothecaries' wrath”, I explained, although I knew that he knew. For how long he had been following me, waiting for the right time to approach I did not know, though. A wave of gratitude washed over me, that he had not come to see me at my parents' home. He turned back to me and his bright eyes were unreadable, trying to read mine. We stood in silence for a moment, watching each other with my eyes wandering eventually to his hands; his fingers were stained red, mine green. Pieter noticed, too, and a ghost of a smile made his lips curl up. And that was all we needed. It was as clear as if we had spoken the words out loud.

“Give my regards to your parents, please.” His eyes looked into mine, not unkindly so but I rembered him giving this look to customers standing behind me, customers he'd known for a long time; friendly but not aflame. Smiling I nodded and after his glance had absorbed it, what I had denied him so often, he turned and disappeared into the fog.

I did give his regards to my parents and they acknowledged it with bewildered looks. Obviously, they had forgotten about his existence, too, or had at least tried to block out the fact that once, not too long ago, I had the chance of becoming a respectable wife to a respectable butcher. But the desire for meat, the hunger, had been washed from my parents' eyes.

“We are blessed”, said my father with one of his crooked smiles, “that our daughter is home.” Both my mother and I tried to read his unseeing, pale eyes. He chuckled. “Blessed.”

1671

We buried my father quietly on a rather cold day in March. His illness had been severe and short, making him fade quickly and as I stared at my own skeletal wrists, I thought to myself that it had been a comfortable death. He'd been in fever most of the time, not noticing what happened to or around him. My mother and I shed no tears at the funeral that was only attended by us two and guild master Pieter de Hooch. The kind man expressed his condolences, offering his support to us repeatedly but my mother declined. “The guild has done enough and two woman don't need much. But we thank you for your kind offer, don't we, Griet?”

“Of course”, I claimed, giving the man, who had been so good to us, a sad smile, “we will be alright. We have always been.”

And with this it was settled. For another seven months my mother would walk like a ghost, spending hours at a time standing in the doorway of the attic room which had been her late husband's domain throughout his last years. We sat at lunch when she suddenly touched a hand to her chest and gasped.

“Griet”, she whispered, confusion in her eyes, “I don't feel well. Please, take me to my bedchamber.” I helped her up and made her sit on the bed while I slipped her cap off her head, unbraided her hair and helped her out of her bodice until she was only in her shift – just like she'd done a thousand times for me. With a groan she lay down and I pulled the sheets over her. I thought her already asleep and turned to leave her in peace when her voice made me halt at the door.

“Griet”, she whispered again, eyes half open.

“Yes, mother?”

“Make sure to scour the tiles in the kitchen properly.”

“Yes, mother. Sleep now.”

The rest of the day I tried to fulfill my duties and chores as quietly as possible. A quiet snore could be heard from my mother's bedchamber, the bed looking so empty without her sharing it with my father. We both missed somebody to share that space. I smiled a bit to myself at a particular loud snore and quiet murmur.

It was already dark and quite late for our supper, when I snug into my mother's room with a candle, meaning to wake her. The warm candlelight illuminated her face and made me pause. Her lips were blue, her face white and a smell of urine and feces filled the air. Looking down at her, I waited for me to stumble back in horror, to gasp, to weep and run and scream for help. Instead I touched my hand to her cheek. She had missed my father so dearly, now, not eight months after he'd left her, she had joined him.

Our neighbours came as soon as I called for them and as they saw my mother, dead, cold, they sent one of their children for a doctor I could afford. When he arrived – an old man who smelled strongly of alcohol – he swayed to my mother's bed. Dead in her sleep, the grieve had weakened her heart. He sobered up a bit when he saw me, standing there and our neighbours explained that I had nobody now, that I was alone.

He squeezed my hand, with a frown, and expressed his condolences. At the same time he noticed my dry, pale face and warm hands as he held them. The man just nodded at me. “I have seen such eyes before”, he said quietly, “and they usually belonged to a person who knows that some paths must be walked 'til their end. Nothing could have been done for your mother.”

“I know”, was my answer, “I know.”

1676

“Griet! Green Griet!”

I looked up from the basked of parsley roots and involuntarily pressed my eyes closed, blinded by the light falling in from the door. A dark shadow stood in it. “Who's there?”

“It's me, Annetge.” The pitter-patter of little feet followed and when I opened my eyes again, she stood right before me, blonde hair , snotty nose and a cap askew on her little head. “My mother sent me to get the medicine for her bad womb.” The child immediately blushed and put her two sticky little hands over her mouth. Her big eyes looked at me as if waiting for a scolding. “I was not supposed to say that.”

It made me chuckle. Children. “Well, I better know what the juice is for or I should not be selling it. So no harm done.” Heaving myself from the old, rickety stool with a groan – my joints cracked and moaned – I went over to the closet I kept my medicines in. The key I carried on a slim string of wool around my neck and as the lock clicked open, the child kept on chattering behing me in the hallway. The juice had been ready for a few days and I had started to wonder if she'd come to collect it at all. The nervous young woman had literally fled my home after coming by and asking for a juice that would help her conceive a boy; that she send her daughter to get it was not surprising in the least. That the juice would not help her to birth a male child either had been my first words, but desperate people usually did not listen to what could destroy their little bubble of hope. Holding the small bottle of brown plant juices, I sighed. Five girls in as many years Annetge's mother had birthed and her husband still hoped for a boy. It made me shudder.

Putting on a confident face for the sake of my little customer, I turned around and held the bottle to her. Annetge was about to grab it, when I pulled it back an inch, holding up one index finger.

“Don't run and drop this, do you hear me?” She eagerly nodded. “Your mother shall take ten drops of juice in some water three times a day, best in the morning, around noon and in the evening. Repeat what I just said.”

Annetge nodded. “Ten drops in water, morning, noon and evening”, she repeated and showed to me her several tooth spaces in a grin. “Alright”, I said and took the coins she handed me, “now run home, it is getting dark.” Like the beat of wings was the sound of her feet towards the door, excited about her important task, but she paused at the threshold. Hesitantly she turned back, looking suspicious.

“This – this is brother juice?”, she asked and I wondered where for God's sake she had gotten that from. She looked at the bottle, then back at me.

I do not lie, I never would lie again. But it did not mean that I could not keep some things to myself either. “Go home, child. Give my regards to your mother.” And the little sparrow flew out of my door and along the canal.

I was 'Green Griet' to my neighbours and customers. But when Maertge came to visit, I was only Griet. And so she called me, standing in my doorway as everybody seemed to do lately. Her voice had startled me from my brooding work and for a moment I could only stare at her, that beautiful woman in her silken dress and smart hairdo.

“Griet”, she called me again and I snapped out of it, hearing her laugh, “can I come in?” Now it was me who had to laugh. “You don't have to ask me that, my dear, Come in, come in!”

Like an exotic bird she swept over my threshold, almost running, and wrapped her arms around me. As I hugged her to me, I noticed she was shaking; as she pulled back a little, she showed her pale face smeared with tears and it occurred to me, that her laugh had not been a laugh at all but a sob. Maertge, who had found me after I had left her home, who had come to me over the years like a sad cloud, telling me of her crowded home, her sister's mean pranks. Like Pieter, who had found me alone, Maertge's visits had started shortly after my mother's death, when the house belonged only to me and nobody was there to disapporve of her presence. She was always welcome with me, I listened to her and throughout the years a strange and simmering friendship formed. First a bond like sisters almost, then of women. Even after her marriage she came to me at least once a week. Her husband, a silk merchant's son, was most ardently in love with her and never refused her a single wish. But as happy as our usual meetings were, the sadder her appearance was today.

Heavily sobbing, Maertge clung to me and I held her, that woman who was still so much a girl to me. After a while, her weeping subsided a bit so she could breath again and that was the moment she gasped out: “He's dead!”

For a swift moment I feared she meant her husband or small son, but my assumption was wiped away the next moment. “My father, my father, he is dead.”, she whimpered. Her father – Maertge's father – Vermeer, Jan Vermeer – He – I felt my legs become leaden and dragged Maertge and myself over to the kitchen bench. “Sit, you must sit.”, I whispered to her, to myself, I was not sure. This I had not expected. Not his death, not the reactions my body put forward while my mind still tried to grasp at what had happened, completely unprepared. “Hush, hush, breathe.” Breathe, I thought to myself, he would never again.

It took me a while and a few drops of a calming tincture to quiet Maertge's weeping. Her head now leaned against my shoulder and her clean, soft one held my rought, green-stained hand. In a quiet voice she spoke to me of his illness, his death, but I barely remembered anything after she had left with a promise of return as soon as everything was settled. It did not manage to bring some warmth back to my limbs, but I felt more like myself again after she had left.

Night fell when I locked my door and went to bed. There was work in the kitchen that needed to be done but I was tired and alone. The house was quiet and as I put myself to bed after a quick rub down with a wet cloth, I thought of Annetge, thought of her crowded, noisy home. So many children in two rooms, the kitchen and the sleeping room. It led my mind to another family of even more kids – eleven, if I remembered correctly – that were now fatherless. I dreamed of him that night.

He sat at his canvas stand, a painting, which did not quite take shape, before him. Quietly, he put one brush stroke after another, halted in his movements, let the tool hover over the colours like an indecisive hawk, before choosing the right one. I never saw his face, standing behind him, watching him paint.

Two months later, Maertge came to tell me that this would be her last visit. Her husband planned to move to Rotterdam. We did not speak of her father and although I felt something like sadness to see her go and probably never again, I also felt relieved. For both of us, her visit marked the end to all this; she would move on to another town and with her leaving, my last ties to his family – to him – would be severed. She hugged me tight, gave me a teary smile. The little bottle I held to her made her pause. “Against the morning sickness.” I said and her smile broadened, her hands holding her abdomen. “I shall call him Jan.”

That night I dreamed of him for the last time. I sat on a chair and he looked at me thoroughly, studied me. I saw his face as clear as if not a day had passed since I sat for the doomed painting. The strain in my neck and back was there from hours of keeping still, the strangely liberating sensation of wrapped cloth around my head. I looked up from the cap I had just taken off in the storeroom and startled when I saw him standing on the threshold. I felt tears prickle in my eyes. I don't cry, I never cry, but finally, finally he saw me and I saw him.

“Your hair”, he said and we stared at each other, long enough that my tears broke through. At last he let me go with his eyes. I let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) was a painter and member of the Guild of Saint Luke, guild for painters and other artists, in Delft. Not sure if he was actually a guild master, I simply chose his name for my writing which is definitely not historically accurate.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome and very much appreciated! :)


	2. I could find Pieter at the Meat Hall and agree to marry him.

I found Pieter at the Meat Hall and agreed to marry him. Two pairs of identical eyes turned to me. Standing there at their stall, people busy with their everyday quarrels in my back, I felt foreign. Everything was way too fresh, on my mind and on my tongue; my eyes swimming with the impression of a woman, almost mad in her despair, lunging for a canvas in order to destroy it. My hands were calm where they should have trembled terribly and clutch at my apron. There was only silence. The silence of people who should have spoken but remained quiet.

It was said silence which gave me the strength to walk on after I had left the house at the Oude Langendijck, steady on to the point of no return, everything crystal clear. Pieter the father and Peter the son had stopped in the middle of what they were doing – cutting into a side of beef, sorting through bits and pieces. They stared at me as if they had not understood my words quite right. So I repeated, “I will marry you.”

We sat at my parents' kitchen table, a jar of small beer before us in order to mark the occasion. His smile was dazzling when Pieter pressed my hand to his lips, looking deep into my eyes. I wondered what he saw there.

“The day was not going well”, he said, still looking at me but speaking to our company, “and then my dear Griet appeared with news so merry I thought I had dreamed them.” Our company, the future parents-in-law, listened intently, even Pieter the father who had been present. Right after I had uttered the words and the two men had recovered from their shock, after I had been whirled around by both of them in their joy, Pieter the son had grabbed my hand. “Your family has to know”, he had insisted and I let him lead me away, wordlessly, my lips numb. All the way to my parents' house he talked as if he needed to fight the silence I carried with me. His father, he said, would run home to his wife and then would join us there.

Eventually we sat together until the bell of the New Church rung midnight and interrupted the conversation like a reminder. Pieter the son started, looked up into the direction the sound was coming from as if he could see through stone and mortar. “I didn't even notice how late – ” He seemed surprised. My family said our goodbyes in our hallway which felt cramped with the number of people. We watched them off from the door, Pieter the father weaving slightly, until they turned the corner. The door was closed and locked and for a moment we stood together, my mother and I looking at each other in a collective gasp of relief. Exhaustion painted our faces – my father's nearly grey in tiredness – and each of us moved towards our chambers immediately. Throughout the evening I had felt the numbness spread from my lips into my cheeks, my neck, down my arms. Now, as I crawled into the bed I had shared with Agnes long ago, the numbness had consumed me, the silence had won. Before I fell asleep I wondered if my mother would find me cold and stiff in the morning, her daughter turned to stone.

Considering how impatient his hands still were on me whenever he got me for a few seconds without prying eyes, Pieter was surprisingly not in a hurry at all for our wedding. Now he had me and he knew it and cherished it. When the day of making it official to the world – to God – would be, he did not particularly seem to care.

Invited to their house by his foreknowing mother, I was to be shown around, learn the new ground I was to be emplanted in after having been ripped out root and branch not too long ago. If she'd heard any talk Pieter's mother did not let it shine through but acted perfectly friendly and courteous towards me. Tall, broad and with her constantly blooming cheeks it was easier for me to follow her and give a nod at the right times than if she'd have been a pale, graceful appearance. “Pieter and his father”, she said once we had settled in the small yard behind the house, sipping luke-warm peppermint tea, “their characters are quite alike. Nothing could ever ruffle my Pieter as long as I keep his belly full with a smile only for him.” Somehow her words made me pause and stop my cup halfway to my lips. I dared glancing at her only out of the corner of my eyes, noticing her looking intently to the ground. Like an echo, soft and almost invisible, I heard her words unfold before me. _Bear his love and you can do as you please. You will be lady of the house, you will oversee business and you're capable of doing so._ Giving us both a moment to let the words settle was merely an attempt of mine to reign in my wildly beating heart. Eventually our eyes met – hers so dark they seemed pupilless – and I could not help but wonder _how_ foreknowing she truly was. An advice, a hint and a warning all in one. She smiled then and the spell was broken when she asked, “Do you like the tea?”

After dinner, Pieter and I were allowed to go for an evening walk. I would stay the night – in a room separating me from Pieter of course – and it felt very much like a pledging to me. Their house would be my house, their name would become my name and as we walked down the canals, both in silence for once, this future of vanishing into somebody else's life seemed to hover before me like a threshold waiting to be crossed. Perhaps this should have scared me more than it did but all that I felt was the numbness returning to my lips and cheeks which I had become aquainted with. As deep in thought as I was, my mind barely registered the moment Pieter pulled me into a small alley not too far from his home, gently pushed me against the wall and kissed me passionately. I let him kiss me, caress my face and, oh, how I wished I could have responded in the same ardent manner, to shed this deafening weight – _his_ weight – and just be. I wanted to want this and in my desperation I started to kiss him back, almost angrily so. A surprised but pleased and eager noise arose from whithin Pieter's chest; a rumbling like distant thunder and it's force would overrun me, make me stagger if I'd just let it.

Hot tears began to trail down my cheeks as I sobbed into the kiss. Tasting the salty drops Pieter broke the touch of our lips and leaned back enough to look at me in the dim light of the alley. His eyes were helpless and alarmed but he let me shake in my sorrow. He kept holding my face in both of his hands as I repeated the words, “I want to – I want to – “, over and over again.

It was still dark the next morning when I opened the door of my room as quietly as possible. I could not remember much of the way back to their house the night before; except for Pieter's voice hushing me, half pulling half carrying me into the small bedchamber I had stayed in eventually, evading his parents' worried enquiries – “What happened? Is she feeling unwell? Is Griet sick?”

Listening carefully I noted the absolute silence of the house before taking a step into the adjacent kitchen with coals glimmering in the hearth. It felt comforting, welcoming. There, on a rickety kitchen bench which was way too small for him, Pieter lay with his legs dangling and his arms crossed on his chest, fast asleep. For a moment I could not move, this I had not expected. But the way his chest moved with a quiet snoring and still in yesterday's clothes, I finally understood what had given me pause. Never before had I had the possibility to truly look at him without his gaze on me, to really look at the man. He seemed honest and soft at the same time and his position was almost endearing. Pieter seemed relaxed although he had sacrificed the comfort of his bed to spend his night and listen to my wellbeing instead. Blood rushed to my cheeks, firing them up. Slowly I approached, crouched down next to him and, following an impulse, kissed his eyelids, one after the other. His eyes remained closed but the smile beginning to lift the corners of his mouth showed me that he was awake. “Griet.”

I kissed his lips. It came to me naturally, quickly, and only after I'd already done it I truly noticed. Maybe my mind was finally so close to breaking that it succumbed to madness, but I leaned down and kissed him again. And again. And again. He let me and the same slow rumble of pleasure began to vibrate in his chest. “Griet”, he whispered my name again, “finally you're here with me.”

On my wedding day, Master Vermeer was not once on my mind. Years later, when I'd tell my own girl about the dress and ceremony, looking into her sparkling round eyes, this came to my mind. I would dream of him from time to time over the following years but that stopped at some point and he was replaced by dreams of a beautiful little boy with blond locks and red cheeks. I did not think of him when I got up to be bathed in hot verbena-scented water before my mother bathed me in her tears. On our walk to the church I thought only of the path ahead of me and how I would keep my dress, humble as it was, for my own daughter. The church service was neither long nor short but kept me focused on my promises as a wife. Pieter in his wedding finery – I would never forget how handsome he looked and how, for the first time, I truly admired him. Our wedding feast was humble but merry with few guests, a slightly less simple meal than usually and Pieter the father crying in his joy after he'd drank his share. The mothers talked about bed linens, pettycoats and child garments, the latter causing me to blush.

My wedding night was as expected. Pieter had had me before, back in the days when I had still nurtured that silly hope of _him_ seeing me, thinking of _his_ hands in my uncovered, open hair. The rush of said night was missing, the appeal of new and forbidden. Slowly he undressed me, cherished me. I did not feel anything this time either but at least there was no new pain, the sheets unbloodied. The latter made me pause but Pieter dispelled my worries. The next morning, not one of our parents asked after it.

1676

I stifled a yawn, simultaneously pressing a fist into my lower back. The child in my womb had not let me sleep for a few nights, moving endlessly until I fell into a restless slumber towards the early hours of morning. “Stay home”, Pieter had said to me this morning, “rest for a bit, you need it.” My protests fell on deaf ears – I did not want to stay at home alone with my thoughts – but eventually I gave in. He'd take our boys to my mother for the day and fetch them in the evening to take them home. His mother, he added, would keep me company. After all these years, Pieter knew my heart.

The squeaking of the door leading into the yard roused me from my mulling. Gasping my mother-in-law waddled across the cobblestones towards me and sat down on the low bench with a sigh. She had put on weight and her physical health had declined throughout the past years but her character remained optimistic and lively as ever. One look at me and she asked what troubled me while her restless hands peeled and cut a bunch of apples we'd picked to cook into compote later. I told her of my fears.

“It was exactly the same with Jan and Frans”, I said, describing my restless nights, ”exactly the same before I went into labour. But it is still too early, almost one month too early.” She said nothing for a while, then held out a piece of fruit to me. Hesitatingly I accepted, chewing slowly. Then I asked for another as for some reason the tart taste calmed me down, my shoulders losing their tension. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she beheld the change. “Your daughter will be fine, my dear.” I spoke to her of such things, I never spoke to my mother about them.

We had just sat down for dinner, the pot of stew on the table and spoons ready in everybody's hands when Pieter turned to me. “Someone came to see you today at the stall”, he said, “the old maid.”

“Old maid?”

He nodded, breathing on the spoonful of stew to cool it down. “Tanneke, the Vermeers' old maid.”

It should have been like ice water being emptied over my head, like a stab to the ribs but all that I felt was a mild confusion. I furrowed my brow, wiped some stew from my youngest son's chin and started to eat as well before asking, “Why, what did she want?”

Pieter shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know, to be honest. When she asked for you I told her that you would not be in today. Then she wanted to know when you'd be back but when I said you were with child and not feeling well, she left.”

Pondering I watched him eat for a moment. There was nothing accusing or suspicious about him, we had closed the door to this chapter long ago which was why Tanneke's sudden appearance confused me even more. I had seen them several times on various occasions from afar, knew that they still existed but outside of my world; not part of my story anymore but simply a faint memory.

The old Pieter cleared his throat, catching the general attention. “You forgot to mention”, he began before clearing his throat again, “what has been _the_ talk of the Meat Hall today. She might have come because of that.”

My husband's expression darkened, irritated by his father's words. “I did not forget to mention it, I-” “Please, no arguing at the table”, I interfered, covering his hand with mine. When he looked merely annoyed but went back to eating I turned to my father-in-law and asked, “What was the talk about? It seems quite grievous if you mention it that way.”

With a sigh the old Pieter let his mug sink back to the table top, his eyes looking resigned under his blonde almost greyed eyebrows. “The painter Vermeer is dead.”

Silence, nobody said anything for a moment.

“When?”

“About two moths ago.”

“And his family? He must be leaving a wife and so many children fatherless.”

“Eleven children. They will be taken care of, their grandmother will take care.”

I nodded slowly. “I am sorry for their loss”, I said, “may God bless them and rest his soul.”

My mother-in-law nodded thoughtfully. “A tragedy.”

That night I went into labour. It was bloody and exhausting and quick. My daughter was small and frail-looking but screaming so loudly. The midwife, whom Pieter had fetched hastily, looked disheveled but pleased. After she'd looked over the child, administered the emergency baptism and bathed her, she put my daughter into my arms and commented, that if she'd ever seen a healthy premature infant then it was this one.

When I was washed, the room cleaned and tidied, the men were finally allowed in. I handed the child over to its' father with my eldest boy dancing around him, calling out demands to see the new sibling as well while the youngest hid his face in his grandmother's skirts. “I want to name her Agnes. After my late sister.” Pieter just nodded, thoroughly bewitched by the struggling and screaming bundle. Pieter the father cried for joy and my mother-in-law held my hand, two fingers on my pulse.

At some point the rest of the family went to bed if only to get a few more hours of sleep as sunrise was already near. Pieter would not share my bed to let me and the new life I'd just brought into this world rest properly. But before he could leave, our youngest son fast asleep in his arms, I called out for him. Half outside the door he stopped.

It took a moment for me to find the words, but he just kept looking at me and suddenly I felt like he already knew. I glanced at my daughter, then I said, “Tell them no.”

My mother bathed my daughter in her tears just as she'd done with me the day I entered this marriage which blessed her with three grandchildren. Her visit came just the following day and as I still lay down in the chamber, they sat around me while keeping an eye on my playing sons through the open door. Pieter would be home late today, drinking to the child's health with his friends and neighbours. I was not angry about it, I just wanted calm and silence and time with my daughter.

“She looks exactly like you as a baby. Little Agnes.” My mother looked younger than she had in years and could not stop crying for joy.

1682

“Mother, look!”

I looked up from the ambers in the coal basin and was faced with a little parcel wrapped in clean cotton being thrust into my face. Reluctantly I leaned away, pushing the object back a little at the same time. “Agnes”, I scolded my daughter, “how often did I tell you not to crowd people like this.” She stumbled a bit out of balance but the excitement on her small face was visible, not at all bothered by my words. Her hair was dark and wild and had loosened from the ribbons I had put it in that morning. I sighed, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in my stomach; _my_ hair, flying in the wind.

Carefully I pulled the basin closer to the bed in the chamber. It was a merciless cold winter during which my mother-in-law had fallen ill and even now, with her still fast asleep, a dry cough wrangled from her throat. Her family hid it very well, but it was probably only a question of time. Pushing the basin a bit closer, yet making sure that it was not close enough for the bedding to catch fire, I took my daughter's hand and closed the door behind us. Within five seconds she'd slipped away, running ahead of me into the kitchen where her older brother was sitting and playing on the floor. Washing my hands I looked out the narrow kitchen window. It was getting dark, the men would come home soon, the two Pieters and Frans, the latter having taken up work with his father and grandfather not too long ago.

Agnes suddenly appeared beside me as I readied all the ingredients for dinner. “Mother”, she said and held out the cloth-wrapped parcel. With a sigh I dried my hands on my apron and sat at the long kitchentable with her. “Alright, were did you get this?”

“I found it on the windowsill.”

“In the yard?”

“No”, she said and shook her head so the curls flew, “going out the door, right.”

The kitchen window, I realised. “Did you see who put it there? Perhaps somebody just forgot it.”

She shrugged her shoulder and looked just like her father in the movement. Quietly I looked down at the parcel, my hand hovering over the knot like a dragonfly over a waterlilly. Eventually I got up, the object still in hand and walked over to the kitchencounter. “Take your brother and look if the hens have laid any eggs. This morning there were none.”

Agnes looked almost affronted. “But, mother, I want to know what is in-” “Agnes?”

Identical eyes looked at me. They understood the stern use of her name and it was enough so my daughter, spirited as she was, grabbed my son wordlessly by the arm and together they left for the chicken coop. That would occupy them for a while.

In the dim light of the kitchen window I carefully unwrapped the fabric, revealing a small wooden box. I opened it the tiniest bit and snapped it shut hastily; white shimmer had been revealed, small and round, ivory. I stared at the cheap wood, the scratched top, the white of the fabric. Carefully I wrapped it up again and stowed it away in my apron pocket.

During dinner I could not speak nor listen properly. I tried, of course, especially as my eldest reported excitedly about his day, all that he had learned and with whom he had talked. My husband was proud, is grandfather was proud, I should be proud, but all that I could think about was the parcel I carried with me in my apron. After dinner the two Pieters talked business while I tucked in my children as usual, but that night I denied them their request for a story. Then I filled a bowl with the left over dinner and took it to my mother-in-law.

As I stood in the doorway, holding onto the bowl with white knuckles, she gave me one single look and her hollow-cheeked face softened.

“Come”, she said, “sit with me.” So I did as she asked. She was so weak that I had to spoon-feed her, taking breaks in between to gain her strength and chew and swallow. The bowl was eaten half when she shook her head, denying more. “Can you show me?”, she asked instead and once again I marvelled at her foresight. She had never talked about it and I had never asked. I pulled the parcel from my apron, unwrapped and opened it. My mother-in-law looked at them for a while, then gave a nod for me to pack them up again.

I had never asked her, but this was the time. “What would it do to us?”

She remained quiet for quite a while, her eyes fixed on the small window of her chamber. “You know”, she then said, “Pieter and his father, their characters are quite alike.”

Of course.

“Old Pieter, he is a good husband to you, isn't he?”

“Oh, yes”, she said, “he is indeed. And our boy, he is a good husband to you, no?” _Bear his love_ _and you can do as you please_.

I whispered, “Yes” and _knew_. With a quiet gasp and under watchful eyes I left the chamber immediately, the bowl left forgotten on the nightstand. Crossing the yard I listened carefully if one of the men was around – I did not need an audience for what I was about to do – and headed for the main door, opened it.

It was already darkest night and cold, the street empty except for a few scattered people; nobody took notice of me, a dark shadow in an even darker house entrance. For a second I wondered if people would see me if I wore them now, if they'd shine in the dark like tiny orbs. Then I pushed the thought away. Holding my breath I walked the few steps and placed the little parcel on the windowsill where Agnes had found it. Then I turned around and closed the door behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard. Those of you, who know the novel, possibly can understand why. I am not a hundred percent satsified with how it turned out but at some point I thought, maybe that is exactly as it should be. Hope you enjoyed reading it nonetheless!


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